Reporter's Notebook

Battle-tested warriors

Tweet

Scott and I traveled to Darulaman Garrison Command in southwest Kabul today to spend some time with the American soldiers charged with mentoring Delta Kandak (or Battalion) of the Afghan National Army’s Headquarters Security and Support Brigade.

The brigade is charged with security in and around Kabul, and the soldiers from Delta Kandak were recently reassigned to the brigade from the army’s 201st Corps. These guys saw some hard fighting with the 201st Corps, and, I was told, were hand-picked by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to serve in the capital region, and I could see why.

Their commander, Lt. Col. Zalmai Nabard, served with Ahmad Shah Massoud, the revered Lion of Panjshir who played a leading role in driving the Soviet army out of Afghanistan and later became a leader in the Northern Alliance that battled the Taliban. The soldiers, who are fasting for the month of Ramadan, were already training when we arrived at the compound, which lies in the shadows of the country’s former royal palaces.

Even while fasting, the soldiers trained to assault a hill, bounding with ease as a squad up a steep, rocky mountain face. They learned how to work their radios. They practiced their first-aid and medical skills. They familiarized themselves with the kandak’s heavy weapons. And all of that training was conducted by the Afghans themselves.

The soldiers in the kandak are very squared away, said Maj. Joe Childress, the operations mentor.

“They’re battle hardened,” he said. “A lot of these guys, like the battalion commander, they’ve fought with the Northern Alliance.”

Now that they’ve been reassigned to the HSSB, the soldiers are going through a reset and training period, but they are itching to get back into the fight, I was told by Childress and the other mentors.

“These soldiers are fighters,” said Maj. Oliver Rose, another operations mentor. “They’re eager, and the one thing they all have in common is peace. They’re tired of war. But they know the only way they can stop this war is to become a better army.”

And if this kandak is any indication of the progress the Afghan army can make, folks like Childress and Rose someday could be out of a job.

“Because of units like this, we’ll get to go home,” Rose said.

Childress agreed.

“Our main goal as mentors is to get them to where they don’t need us, where we’re allies, not mentors,” he said.

As U.S. leaders call for more troops to be sent to Afghanistan, especially to serve as army and police mentors, here’s hoping they’ll get the chance to work with more soldiers like the ones in Delta Kandak.